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Greening the Open

Submitted by Education on Mon, 18/03/2013 - 00:00

The Green Team have been plotting our next moves – and one area of focus is to make our flagship annual open studios event more sustainable. Since they are at the heart of the success of the Open, we hope to combine this with our aim of working more closely with artists to raise awareness and encourage them to take steps to be greener.

We’re at the early planning (paperless, of course) stages but already have a few ideas about how we can go about this:

Waste and recycling is a biggie for us; there are lots of glass bottles and disposable cups and plates thrown away at the Open, so we want to ensure recycling options are very visible and, as far as possible, we use recyclable goods. In addition, there’s always a big clean up before the event so we hope to recycle as much as we can as part of this.

Looking at our suppliers: we buy in alcohol and soft drinks and have external people providing food. We are looking into the logistics of using local business with positive green credentials.

Sustainable travel: we hope to encourage visitors to walk, cycle, get the train or bus to see us by signposting options like Boris Bikes and nearby pleasant walking and cycling options.

Shouting about sustainability: we’ve got green team representation on the Open working group to ensure it’s kept high on the agenda. We’re thinking about profiling sustainability at the event itself through display or participation. We’re planning to keep the blog updated about how this goes for us.

As always, we’ve done a bit of research into greening events, such as this case study from Julie’s Bicycle on the Isle of Wight festival, which provide great initial ideas to get us started. We’ll let you know our progress…

At Bow Arts we are committed to supporting East London communities and artists. In turn, we rely on all the support individuals, the community and artists can afford to give back.